Motorcyclist crashes into cyclists

YouTube user rnickeymouse posted this video last night of a motorcyclist hitting two cyclists on Mulholland Highway near Malibu, California. To quote from the YouTube video description:

Cyclists didn’t appear to have serious injuries. Note about cyclists and riders coexisting on this famous 2 mile stretch of road. Even though bicycles are up here in increasing numbers, this is the first time a bicycle has been hit by a motorcycle In the fours years I’ve been up here. Motorcycle riders of all skill levels come up here to practice. This location it is pretty common for riders to sometimes go wide exiting the turn. It is very unfortunate, and a rare case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We wish the cyclists a speedy recovery.

SHARE

http://twitter.com/blair_houghton blair houghton

1. don’t rent the movie “Mullholland Drive” expecting to understand this from it. or anything else. it’s John Lynch at his John Lynchiest. it’s pretty cool, if you ever get it, but getting it is like doing your own splenectomy.

2. motorcycle guy is a total cunt. zero skills. complete squid. hits two guys occupying the painted line? wanker to the Nth degree. should not be allowed out of the house except to make money to pay the cyclists for embarassing them with his utter lameness in the film. and for breaking their expensive wheels. seriously. i ride both kinds of bikes. that dude should be relegated to 4 wheels forever. as a backseat passenger with no talking privileges.

3. i have that brioches la boulanger jersey. it’s easily my favorite, and probably one of the two best looking jerseys ever, along with the black rainbow-fade illes balears jersey. the two-chest-pocket celeste bianchi jersey is a distant third.

4. and there’s an @fatcyclist jersey that makes a cameo, which never hurts a cycling film.

http://twitter.com/rhodeskc Kris R.

Mulholland is a really common crash location for motorcyclists. Cops sometimes park on the inside of the corner and just wait for someone to crash. A quick search on Youtube will find billions of videos of people crashing there. Let’s just hope that the motorcyclist had enough insurance to cover the medical bills – the minimum required in California is $30k for 2 people, $15k for one… but that disappears really quickly (I was driven 9 blocks and it cost $6k).

Michael

The cyclist was not in the wrong place at the wrong time! He was doing nothing wrong. This was not an accident. The motorbike rider was not paying attention to the road and had overestimated his skill. It is incumbent on the guy riding several hundred kilos of over-horsepowered bike to make sure he doesn’t hit anybody with it. If he can’t do that then he shouldn’t be riding.

I really hope the cyclists gets their bikes and wheels fully paid for, recover soon and aren’t put off by the arse on a bike.

We shouldn’t be bullied off the roads by idiots, either in cars or on motorbikes. People hitting cyclists with large metal objects need to be made responsible for their actions, and need to be made aware just how much damage they can cause when they don’t take their responsibility to other road users seriously.

a different ben

Strict liability for the biggest or most powerful vehicle in any incident is the way to go. Trucks > cars > motos > bicycles > pedestrians, etc. In places in Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark) the presumption is that the bigger vehicle is at fault, and you must prove that you weren’t, rather than the systems in place in the US, Australia and the UK where motorists by default get the presumption of innocence, or are given a get-out-of-jail-free card of ‘I didn’t see them’.

Strict liability for the biggest or most powerful vehicle in any incident is the way to go. Trucks > cars > motos > bicycles > pedestrians, etc. In places in Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark) the presumption is that the bigger vehicle is at fault, and you must prove that you weren’t, rather than the systems in place in the US, Australia and the UK where motorists by default get the presumption of innocence, or are given a get-out-of-jail-free card of ‘I didn’t see them’.

surely learner licensing in the states covers taking a good / safe line through corners? He entered the corner on center line guaranteeing drifting out at the apex and beyond.

http://twitter.com/blair_houghton blair houghton

The corner went from banked to outside-cambered, and he totally failed to adjust. Then he failed to brake. He just failed all around.

If he was even licensed to ride a motorcycle (many, many people don’t bother to get the endorsement, or insurance, or a clue), there’s little chance he was practiced at such turns. The motorcycle safety course in every state talks about camber, but there’s no test of handling it, since it would require a special course. The ride tests are flat-road maneuvers (90-degree turns, u-turns, swerves, sometimes decreasing-radius and s-turns) that the DMV can lay out on any parking lot. Most riders probably can’t handle the tighter ones just a few weeks after they’re tested on them.

They should at least recognize that and learn to brake hard and sacrifice their bike before they kill someone…or destroy bicycles that cost more than their motorcycle did.

Mike

How is it that there was footage of that? The motorcyclist needs to take a skills class and learn to lay it down. Mulholland is a bit hairy. Piuma, cold canyon, and stunt road are safer but tougher.

Here is the youtube link to footage/POV directly behind, shot by the motorcycle following him. They pass several cyclists, as you would any weekend up here. That should have served as a reminder that he’s not the only one out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av5nQba0I3o

PT

Friends of mine were nearly taken out by a bike rider (with a pillion passenger) who passed them on a descent north of Sydney on Sunday. They were rolling at about 65kmh and he came inside the rearmost cyclist (who was already on the shoulder) and then passed the other one on the outside – on his way to taking the next corner on the wrong side of the road. Statistic in-waiting.